Calgary Garden Coach

more art in the garden

Here are some more little ideas I picked up on the garden tour this past summer:
Dried allium seeds heads in an oriental vase.  Would look pretty inside or out!

A retaining wall made of broken concrete pavers.  I have some of these lying around I might use someday...

A cute little potting area beside the house.  It doesn't take much to make a plain area beside the house look nice, does it?    I have a spot on the north patio beside my house where I'd like to do something like this...

The same potting area.  But I'd like to build a raised bed like this in a different area of my yard.  When the living room windows eventually get replaced, you know what I'll use them for...!

Tree stumps for pot stands.  Why didn't I think of that? 

art in the garden - a gardener's wish list

I have been gardening for long enough that I am comfortable coming up with my own plant combinations and overall designs for my yard.  However, I am always on the lookout for neat ideas for decorating my garden.  Here are some pictures I snapped on the Calgary Horticultural Society's winning garden tour this past summer, with some ideas I'd like to incorporate into my own garden -the pictures are my own, but unfortunately I didn't keep track of whose gardens they were, sorry.  Any of my family members who are wondering what to get me for Christmas, take note...
I have a large patio on the north side of my house, that I'd like to add some raised beds to someday, to add interest to the space.  Here is a great idea of a wooden bed on rollers so it can be moved around depending on what kind of space you need on the patio.  Brilliant!

... another building project for hubby (someday).  Why build a regular old deck railing when you can have something as eye-catching as this?  Hmm, where would I put this...

 

Of course, every gardener needs a greenhouse.  Well, I can always dream...  I love how this one is built on a foundation of bricks.

This is a neat way to build a garden room.  I can see this in between the 2 spruce on my north patio someday.  All it is is a two-sided trellis to make the front wall, a hedge on either side, and a fence in the back.  Easy peasy.  Love the painted colours, too.  Honey, I need one of these...

 

 

Here's the same garden room from outside one of the hedges...

 

 

These free-standing trellises are a friendly way to create a bit of a boundary without making a barricade against your neighbours.  Lovely.

A bubbler fountain.  A nice way to get the sound of running water without the maintenance of a pond and/or waterfall.  I was thinking of getting one of these for my mother-in-law, but then she went and bought herself a little fountain-in-a-pot instead.  Hmm, I still want one for myself...

 

A rain chain.  This one is attached to a little pump at the bottom and a hidden clear tube behind the foliage so that it is always tinkling away.  Another option for adding the sound of water without a lot of maintenance.  Help! I want both...

 

 

I have always eschewed the idea of mirrors in the garden.  They are lovely, but I have enough kamikaze birds flying into my windows already, I don't need to add more things to confuse them.  But this  was a neat way to recycle a broken mirror, plus I think the large spaces between the pieces would prevent birds from thinking it was a hole in the fence and trying to fly through.  It is placed low enough on the fence to reflect the beautiful woodland garden below.  Would it be bad luck if I broke a mirror on purpose just to recreate this in my own garden...?

winter interest - thank goodness for beautiful evergreens

  These spruce boughs were absolutely gorgeous when I was walking to work yesterday.  A picture taken in the dark doesn't really do justice to the delicate frostiness of the snow-laden boughs, but here you go anyway. 

The branches looked like gigantic snowflakes and I couldn't resisit snapping a few pics.  Once again, gardeners in zone 3 really need to pay attention to how our gardens look the other six months of the year and make sure we have lots of winter beauty to get us through these dark, cold months...

the asters had a good run this year

  I've complained before about how asters bloom too late in the season, and how many years they get knocked off by frost or snow long before they get a chance to finish their show.

This year, however, they had a nice long go of it, so I'm thinking about giving them one more chance and spreading some around the garden next spring.  It was quite nice to still have a few flowers in bloom these last few weeks.  They looked great until yesterday (Nov 17) when the snow hit.

i'd say winter is officially here

  Here is the same view I posted a picture of 2 days ago for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day.  I took it on the way to work so sadly it was dark at the time (but it's also dark when I come home so I really had no choice).

Right now everything looks beautiful covered in ice and snow, so I will be blogging about the beauties of winter and designing for winter interest a lot over the next few months!  Then I will start to go stir crazy and be dying for spring...

Nov 15 - GBBD: nothing but asters left in bloom

  As you can see, I haven't got around to much clean-up yet.  Once fall hits and I go back to work (my "real job" is being a college instructor), my gardening time comes screaching to a halt. While I do feel twinges of jealousy when I look at other GBBD posts from zone 6 and up gardeners, I actually am thankful to have a break from the garden for 6 months a year.  Yes, it's true!  I have other things to do (Christmas crafts, sewing, painting furniture and walls, then it's time to start planning, ordering seeds and it all starts all over again).

I will be posting less frequently over the winter, but I do hope to post more on aspects of garden design, which I just didn't have time to do over the summer when I could barely keep up with cataloguing my plants as they bloomed.

Here are some more pics of things that are still going in my zone 3 garden:

  Here are some of the asters I have.  I am of two minds about them - yes, it's nice to have something still in bloom this late in the year, but really what's the point when the rest of the garden is done?  They just don't have as much impact when they're surrounded by dead stuff.  So, I have been thinking of ripping them out.

However, I may give them one more chance.  Of course, the way to give a plant more impact is to repeat it throughout the garden.  So, next spring I will be dividing these plants and putting multiples in several sunny spots in the yard - at least 5 in the front garden and at least 5 on the back hill (if I can find the space).  These ones are in my back hill garden.

  The asters beside the rain barrels in the cutting garden have been blooming for a month, and the plant is getting huge.  This will be my source for new plants to spread around next spring.

Blue fescue will look great all winter long.  Sometimes it doesn't even need to be cut back in spring!  Here it is in front of some wilted bergenia.

Calamagrostis (feather reed grass) 'Karl Foerster' catches the sun and looks great against the blue backdrop.

Globe thistle holds its shape all winter long and makes great dried flowers, too.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy' under the shadowy outline of a John Cabot rose.

This time of year, I am thankful for my flowering houseplants.  My Christmas cactus always blooms in November, and puts on a great show.

... and finally, the jade plant is just starting to get buds.  It bloomed last year for the first time - I've read they take about 8 years before they bloom.  This one is very happy in a west facing bay window.

planting amaryllis - the gardening never ends!

I may not be getting outside much these days, but it doesn't stop me from planting.  I must really have a problem - I can't even stop myself from buying plants when I'm at the grocery store!

Under the guise of buying this for my kids to plant, I picked this up yesterday.  But really, it seems to me it is a great winter gardening project for kids.  Amaryllis bulbs need nothing but a pot with some growing medium.  They grow quickly, are interesting looking while they're growing and have gorgeous, showy flowers - making them ideal plants for kids. 

... not to mention they make great Christmas decorations and gifts!

snow!

When I looked out the window this morning, I saw snow.  My first thought was "Oh, I need to go take a picture for my blog."  My second thought was "I really should have made getting the kids new mittens a higher priority these last few weeks."  My third thought was "What kind of Mom always thinks about gardening before her kids?!" 

Better go mitten shopping this week-end.

(and BTW I didn't take a pictures until much later on since it was dark at the time anyway...)